


The Way Things Change

by DetectiveJoan



Series: Never Let You Go [1]
Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, Post-Finale, Unplanned Pregnancy, canon atypical happy endings and best case scenarios, canon typical bad decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 12:38:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15640920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveJoan/pseuds/DetectiveJoan
Summary: It feels like the kind of news that she should share in person, but let it never be said that Samantha Barnes isn’t a coward; she calls Joan again at ten after five, when she knows she’ll be on her way out of the office, and drops the information on her like an anvil.“Oh,” Joan says, sounding surprised, but not like she’s feeling the same mild panic that has been sitting in Sam’s stomach for two weeks. “Wow. Pregnant. That’s — that’s great news, Sam! What did Mark say when you told him?”





	The Way Things Change

**Author's Note:**

> **Content Warnings!** As always, warnings for age difference between Joan and Sam, and inherent consent issues involved in Joan being Sam's former therapist. Additionally, this fic involves Sam being in a romantic relationships with Mark and then later entering a romantic relationship with Joan; there's absolutely no Mark/Joan, BUT if you think the sibling thing is going to feel uncomfortable for you then please skip this fic!
> 
> Title from [Seven Years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GWS7ZFdNlk) by The National Parks, a song which is....way more angsty than this fic ended up being.
> 
> Everything I know about pregnancy I learned from wikipedia and then immediately chose to forget, do not @ me about how inaccurate this is.

A week after they break up, Mark’s on a tour bus out of town. 

A week after that, Sam’s period tracker app pops up a notification on her phone letting her know she’s late.

Fuck.

It takes her another ten days to build up the nerve to drop a pregnancy test in her shopping basket, and then another three to actually use it.

By then it’s been long enough that the denial’s mostly worn away, and the little lines indicating pregnancy are barely a surprise. 

Still: fuck. 

Sam throws the test away. She washes her hands. She changes her mind, fishes the test out of the trash, and takes it with her into the kitchen, where she sets it on the counter beside the coffee machine. 

She shouldn’t drink coffee if she’s pregnant, right? She’s read that somewhere?

But it’s not like she’s going to  _ keep _ it. Him. Her.

Right?

She throws the test away again. She pours herself a mug of coffee. She considers it for twenty seconds before carefully setting the full mug in the sink and fishing the test out of the trash again. 

Still pregnant. 

She calls Mark, and then hangs up on the second ring.

She calls Joan and hangs up on the third. 

She calls Chloe, even though she knows she’s just going to get the voicemail message about how Chloe’s off in the wilderness somewhere between here and Chicago with her phone turned off so she can more fully appreciate Frank’s company as well as the beauty of nature. Or something like that. Sam hangs up before hearing the tone she could leave her message at. 

She calls Agent Green to let him know that she won’t be in the office today because she isn’t feeling well, and then she sets her phone on the counter beside the test. She closes her eyes and starts focusing her energy to go on a trip.

No. Wait.

Would time travel be bad for it? (Him? Her?) 

_ Fuck _ . 

/ / / 

Sam spends an hour researching abortions, and can’t quite get the idea of it to stick right in her head. She spends another two hours researching the costs of childrearing, flipping through tabs on her banking app, and reading whole sections of her shiny new AM-provided health insurance plan that she had barely glanced at when she signed the paperwork a week ago. 

She could do this.

Probably.

If she wanted to. 

If, if, if. 

At lunchtime she nukes some leftovers, clears her browser history, and torrents  _ What to Expect _ . 

/ / / 

It feels like the kind of news that she should share in person, but let it never be said that Samantha Barnes isn’t a coward; she calls Joan again at ten after five, when she knows she’ll be on her way out of the office, and drops the information on her like an anvil.

“Oh,” Joan says, sounding surprised, but not like she’s feeling the same mild panic that has been sitting in Sam’s stomach for two weeks. “Wow.  _ Pregnant. _ That’s — that’s great news, Sam! What did Mark say when you told him?”

Sam nearly laughs with the sudden wave of renewed anxiety. “I haven’t told him yet,” she admits. “I, uh, I kind of wanted you to tell me I’m not making a giant mistake first.”

“You’re not making a mistake,” Joan says firmly. “If this is what you want to do, I’ll support you fully. And so will Mark.”

“Yeah,” Sam says numbly, trying to will herself into believing it. 

“You don’t need to worry about anything,” Joan says. “I promise. I’ll take care of it.” 

/ / / 

Telling Mark goes even better.

“Holy  _ shit,”  _ he breathes, leaning closer to his phone camera so his pixelated face takes up most of her computer screen. “Are you serious?”

She just nods but she’s grinning because he’s grinning, and he’s running his hand through his hair with a restlessness that looks like excitement. He’s always had a contagious kind of glee. 

“Oh my God, Sam, that’s amazing. Congratulations. Do you — what should I do? Do you want me to come home?”

“No,” she says automatically. Then: “Yes. I don’t know.” 

Mark’s grin doesn’t falter as Sam gets up and starts pacing in front of the table on which her laptop is sitting.

“No,” she says again. “I’m fine. And you’re only going to be gone a few months, right? It’s not like anything’s really happening yet. You’re not missing much.” 

Mark’s smile is all soft and wide and easy the way it used to be in England, when everything was simple between them and Sam was his entire world. 

It’s how he’s going to look at the baby, she suddenly knows. 

“You’re making a  _ baby,”  _ he says, like he heard the thought. There’s an edge of awe in his voice. “That doesn’t sound like nothing’s happening.” 

“Nothing noticeable,” she corrects.

“Okay, fine,” he concedes, “but I still want to hear all about it.”

/ / /

The first thing Joan takes care of is the reading that Sam feels simultaneously obligated and unable to do; the only information Sam’s been retaining from her attempts at research is all the ways that pregnancy can go terribly, terribly wrong. It’s keeping her up at night. When she mentions it to Joan, Joan drives her to an actual brick and mortar bookstore, makes her sift through the entire pregnancy and childbirth section, and buys the stack of everything Sam admits looks potentially useful. 

And then Joan spends three weeks reading through all of it. 

“Tell her the baby isn’t a thesis,” Mark advises Sam over the phone.

Sam hits the speaker button and sets the phone down on Joan’s latest book. “Tell her yourself.” 

“Joanie,” Mark says patiently, voice sounding distant and tinny. “You know you can’t research your way out of this.”

“Not trying to get out of it, Mark,” she replies. “Just ahead of it. We don’t know much about pregnancy, atypical or not. It seems prudent to gather as much information as possible.” 

“We’re just getting prepared for all possible dragons,” Sam adds. “The baby doesn’t mind.” 

Mark sighs. “You two really were made for each other.” 

Sam fidgets at his tone, but Joan smiles at her brightly and says, “Yes, Sam is a truly amazing research partner.” 

“That’s a joke about the fact that she won’t let me read anything she doesn’t okay first,” Sam tells Mark. “And she hasn’t okay’d anything yet.” 

“Because most of it is _ baseless _ fearmongering,” Joan says.

Sam puts up her hands. “I’m really not arguing here. If you want to read all the horror stories about how this could kill me so I don’t have to, be my guest.” 

/ / / 

Sam accepts when Joan offers to take her to her doctor’s appointments because getting to them on the bus while working a nine to five is more difficult than Sam is willing to put up with. Joan asks all sorts of complicated-sounding medical questions and scribbles notes on a legal pad while the doctor talks. Sam suspect Joan also has a voice recorder hidden in her bag, but she doesn’t ask.

During the first visit, they get mistaken for a couple by three people in the waiting room, the receptionist, two nurses, and the doctor. Joan’s smile gets tighter every time Sam stutters her way through explaining that actually Joan is just the baby’s aunt. 

“You don’t have to correct them if you don’t want to,” Joan says in the car on the way back to the AM. “I don’t care if they think we’re together. It’s not like it’s any of their business, anyway.” 

/ / / 

When Joan finishes reading the books, she starts in on the patient files she’s pulled from the AM.

After four evenings spent with the paperwork spread out on Sam’s dining room table, Joan sets her highlighter down and presses her thumbs to the inside corners of her eyes.

“There’s nothing here to find,” she says, voice edged with frustration. “The only adjacently useful information is that regarding when certain abilities start presenting in children, but there’s no record of how the use of different abilities can affect the health of the fetus.”

Sam peers over her shoulder, but can’t make much sense of her scribbled notes. “So...nothing about whether or not I should time travel while pregnant?” she says. 

Joan sighs.

“No.”

She presses her lips together.

She closes all of the files and stacks them on the far end of the table. 

She flips her notepad to a new page. 

“I suppose we’re just going to have to do the research ourselves.” 

/ / /

Mark dusts off his networking skills at a music festival in California and manages to pick up his next job. It’s touring again, but this time through Europe, and he’ll only be gone for two months,  _ and _ he gets three full weeks at home before he has to leave again.

Sam’s morning sickness returns with a vengeance the day he’s flying in; she and Joan are late getting to the airport because she spends twenty minutes emptying her stomach and then brushing her teeth until she can’t feel her tongue. 

When they finally pull into the pick-up area at the airport, Mark is standing on the curb, looking entirely unbothered by their tardiness. He pulls Joan into a tight hug when she jumps out of the car, and then he drags Sam out so he can do the same to her, squeezing so tight her ribs hurt. He lifts her off her feet a little bit and then sets her down and takes a good look at her.

“You look amazing, Sam,” he says.

“Very funny,” she says. She knows she looks exactly as sick, tired, and miserable as she feels. And Mark — well, he actually does look amazing. It’s been more than a year since they got him out of the AM, and he could be a completely different person from the guy she met back in 1810. He’s wearing a small hoop in his one pierced ear, there’s a new mockingbird tattoo on the inside of his left wrist, and he has the kind of warm tan that Sam has always been jealous of and has never been able to attain.

She self-consciously smooths her hand over her stomach where Joan swears she isn’t showing yet.

“No, seriously,” he says. “You’re glowing.”

“He’s right,” Joan says, lugging Mark’s bag to the trunk. “You look great, Sam.” 

/ / /

Mark takes Sam out to the theater a few nights later, and she’s so preoccupied with looking at him out of the corner of her eye that she misses most of the first act. After intermission, he wraps his arm around her shoulder and shifts until she’s leaning back against his chest. She can’t see him anymore, but it’s no less distracting. 

When the show ends, he ducks his head down to speak right in her ear so she can hear him over the applause. 

“So,” he says, running his fingers lightly over her bare shoulder, “Joan made me promise I would sit down with you and have a very serious, very adult conversation about fatherhood and responsibility and the exact nature of our relationship.” 

“But?” Sam asks, because she knows him.

“But,” she can hear him grin, “—and I know we sorta broke up when I left, so let me know if I’m way out of line here—but I’m thinking we could save the very serious conversation for later, and just go back to your place and have some fun tonight instead?”

She lets him curl his hand over her leg while he drives her home, and she lets him kiss her breathless on the front porch until she can fumble the door open, and then she lets him go down on her until she’s nearly coming on his tongue. He smears  _ I-missed-you _ ’s into her skin as he kisses his way up her stomach and chest and neck, as she crawls into his lap and lets him push into her.

It’s late when they finish, but the knowledge stands unspoken between them that he can’t stay the night. He showers and heads back to Joan’s, and she’s left to sleep in a bed that suddenly feels very empty. 

/ / /

It’s been 4 months since Sam went on a trip, and she can taste it in the back of her throat. 

/ / /

Sam refuses to let anyone even think about throwing her a baby shower—sure, babies are expensive, but she still has  _ way _ more money than any of her friends, she doesn't need them to buy her gifts—so they make something of a party out of nursery decoration instead. 

Caleb and Alice drag all the bookshelves out of the office and into the front room, and then manage to squeeze Sam’s desk into the garage that she uses exclusively for storage. Chloe (who is back in town for a few weeks primarily to pack enough things to move to Chicago with Frank on a more permanent basis) insists on spearheading the painting. She and Mark put two coats of sky blue on the walls, and then add textured clouds using some brush technique that Sam never would have thought of, much less been able to pull off. Joan and Adam assemble the new furniture with the fervor of people who not only understand, but actually appreciate—dare Sam say enjoy?—Ikea instructions. 

Sam mostly tries not to hover too anxiously. 

By sundown, the party is sprawled across the front porch and lawn with delivered pizza and homemade root beer. The conversation drifts to names. 

“You could name him after me,” Mark jokes. 

“And call him Junior?” Adam asks. 

“Technically, he would be the third,” Joan says around a mouthful of pizza crust. “Mark was named after our father.”

“What!” Sam exclaims at the same time Caleb says, “Seriously?” 

Mark shrugs. “It’s why I go by my middle name.” 

“You don’t know that it’s going to be a boy,” Chloe says. “And I’ve always really liked gender-neutral names. You could go with something like Jordan or Riley.” 

“Or Sam?” Adam suggests, and Caleb snorts beside him.

“Actually, I was thinking of using one of my parents’ names,” Sam admits. The mood goes a bit somber at the mention of her family, as it always does.

“Well it’s definitely going to be a boy,” Mark says, with a certainty that has to be fake. “I can feel it. So what’s your dad’s name?” 

“Nathan?” Sam says like a question. 

“Nate Barnes,” he says like a statement. “I like it.” 

/ / / 

She and Mark don’t manage to have that serious, adult conversation before he’s on a plane again. 

“We’re really not good at talking to each other,” he admits when he calls her after he lands. She can picture him at the baggage carousel, standing in the middle of the airport and rubbing at a headache. 

“Not while we’re physically together,” Sam agrees. “We weren’t too bad at talking to each other in England.”

“You failed to mention you were working with Joanie,” he reminds her.

“Fair point.” She twists her finger through the cord of her landline. “But maybe we could talk now?” 

“Sure,” Mark says.

God, there’s so much that she wanted to say to him while he was here.

“We’re not great together,” he says before she can find a starting place. 

Her throat feels tight, but he isn’t wrong. “I know.” 

“I don’t think...I mean, we should probably...” he trails off and then sighs. It's somewhat gratifying to know that he's struggling to find words as much as she is. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” she says automatically.

“But breaking up was a good idea.”

“Yeah.” She closes her eyes. “And I know you didn’t sign up to have a baby. That’s on me. Joan keeps saying she wants you to be a  _ father _ or whatever, but I don’t expect—” 

“Oh, no way are you pushing me out of  _ that,”  _ Mark interrupts. “I’m still gonna be the best dad this kid could ever hope for. I just...might have to do it from Europe occasionally. Is that okay?” 

Sam bites her lip. 

She can work with that. 

“Traveling has been good for you,” she says.

He makes a sound like a laugh, but tinged with frustration. “Yeah. But being home was good for me, too. Seeing you. And Joan. And I’m gonna figure out the balance.” 

“I know.” 

“Hey, will you tell her I landed safely? And that I miss her already?” 

Sam has to swallow around sudden tears before she can agree. 

/ / / 

The thought of spending the night alone feels overwhelming, so she shows up on Joan’s doorstep at dusk with an overnight bag and fresh tears in her eyes. The key Mark had given her several months ago digs into her leg through her jeans pocket, but she presses the doorbell and waits to be let in. 

“Samantha!” Joan says when she opens the door. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“I’m sorry this is probably really weird,” she say. “But can I stay with you tonight?” 

Joan doesn’t hesitate before stepping forward and pulling her into a tight hug. “Of course,” she says. 

Sam lets herself collapse into her embrace and starts crying in earnest.

There’s really nothing that deserves this many tears—her conversation with Mark had been a little rough, but they’d been rocky for a long time, and the breakup didn’t even qualify as new—so she’s assuming the emotional collapse has something to do with her hormones being all over the map. 

“I’m sorry,” she says again, but Joan just shushes her and strokes her hair. 

Joan doesn’t ask for any sort of explanation. She just pulls Sam into the house, wraps an arm around her back, and leads her into Joan’s bedroom. Joan settles against the headboard, and guides Sam until she’s laying with her head resting on Joan’s chest. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Joan asks.

Sam shakes her head. 

“Okay,” Joan says, like it’s that easy. “Let’s just go to bed, then.”

Sam closes her eyes and waits to drift off. 

Like it’s that easy. 

/ / /

Waking up in Joan’s bed is surreal. It feels a lot like waking up in the past had, back when Sam had been stuck on trips for weeks at a time. She’d known while she was asleep that she wasn’t where she belonged, but it wasn’t until she opened her eyes that the impossibility of her situation returned in full force.

And feeling that here, in the present? Opening her eyes and seeing Joan’s restful face tilted towards her even though a day ago that experience had sounded markedly more impossible than time-travel?

It’s good.

Sam could probably stay there for a long time, just taking in the sight that is Joan sleeping peacefully, but that sounds quite a bit like  _ pining _ and Sam doesn’t want to admit to doing that, so she forces herself to get out of bed before Joan wakes up. 

/ / /

When they go in for the second ultrasound, the tech assumes they’re a couple. Sam decides very abruptly that she’s too tired to correct him.

She makes eye contact with Joan and must manage to communicate her exhaustion, because Joan takes Sam’s hand, gives her a sappy smile, and bubbles out, “Oh, yes, we’re  _ very _ excited to find out the gender. Right, dear?”

The joke of hearing Joan use a term of endearment is funny enough that Sam manages a genuine smile. “Of course,” she lies. 

The ultrasound itself is not the most comfortable experience. The gel is icy cold on her skin, and the tech presses the wand against her more firmly than she expected. Joan keeps holding her hand, and leans close to be better able to see the screen on the opposite side of Sam’s reclining chair. 

The tech hits a few keys on the computer, shifts the wand a bit to the left, and makes a sound. “Oh, there he is,” he says. 

“He?” Joan asks immediately.

The tech nods. Sam doesn’t really care that it’s a boy, but watching the baby move on the screen floods her with a very jumbled wave of happiness and excitement and relief and anticipation and—there aren’t enough words to describe it all. She might be crying again.

“Why do I get the feeling that Mark is going to be very happy about this?” Sam mutters. 

“You know he’ll be over the moon no matter what we tell him,” Joan says.

“Is that the father?” the tech asks politely, and Joan nods. “That’s so nice. You wouldn’t believe how many gay couples I speak to who don’t even know who the father is — but it’ll be so good for your son to have a man in his life! Do you have a close relationship with him?”

Sam can’t tear her eyes away from the screen, but she’s sure Joan is making a very complicated face behind her.

/ / /

_ “Dear?” _ Sam says hesitantly when they’re in the parking lot. She’s clutching the envelope with the ultrasound pictures a bit too tightly.

Joan doesn’t look up from digging her keys out of her purse. “Sorry,” she says. “It seemed like the sort of thing he wanted to hear.”

Sam could shrug it off there, but she can’t stop thinking about what it had felt like to wake up in Joan’s bed, so she collects her courage and says, “Is that what you’d call me if we were together?”

“Of course not,” Joan replies instantly, either like it’s obvious or like she’s previously thought it through. “I’d call you Sam, because that’s your name.” 

/ / /

Joan shuts Agent Green in a conference room one Wednesday morning and gives a 45-minute presentation on how the AM has historically neglected to research and address the needs of both atypical mothers and the mothers of atypical children. She has an extensive powerpoint. 

Sam sits beside him and doodles flowers on a legal pad as Joan clicks through slide after slide arguing that the absolute lack of codified knowledge of atypical pregnancy is a disgrace borne of decades of male-only leadership and that it’s their duty to correct it now that the dismantling of tiers four and five has lead to a significant increase in available personnel and resources.

“Any questions?” she says at the end.

Green turns to Sam. “Is this about you?” he asks.

“It’s about the need to rectify a glaring, and frankly  _ misogynistic _ oversight in the services that our organization provides to the atypical community,” Joan answers very firmly. 

“But I am expecting,” Sam adds, bringing her hand up to rest on her stomach automatically.

“Congratulations,” he says quickly, like he’d already known and had simply been waiting for her to admit it. “And I think the project’s a great idea. Even if I didn’t, I know better than to get between Dr. Bright and research that she’s passionate about.”

/ / / 

The first time Sam catches Joan’s wrist and guides her hand to the place low on Sam’s stomach where she can feel the baby kicking up a storm, Joan practically melts. 

“Oh my god,” she says, immediately sounding like she could cry about it. It’s easily the most emotional Sam has ever seen her over anything other than Mark. Joan brings her other hand up to rest on Sam’s other side, and Sam has no idea what Joan’s getting out of that, but she feels weirdly  _ safe _ between Joan’s hands. “How long - ?”

“It started about a month ago,” Sam says. She doesn’t mention that the first time it had happened, it had woken her up and she’d been halfway into a panic attack before figuring out what was going on.

It’s easier to focus on the good stuff when Joan’s around.

/ / /

One day, Mark mentions sheepishly that he’d met a guy at a concert in France. 

“Is it weird if I talk to you about meeting other people?” he asks. “Because I can shut up about it, but if you’ve been secretly seeing someone and not telling me, I’m going to be so annoyed when I get home.”

Sam lies on her back in the middle of her bed, cell phone pressed to her ear, and free hand tracing the stretch marks that have bloomed with surprising speed and stealth all across her waist.

“I’m a bit of a walking balloon right now,” she says. “Even if I had the energy to be secretly seeing someone, I can’t think of anyone who’d want to see me.” 

Mark makes an indignant noise. “Hey,” he says, “you  _ know _ I’d take you out if I were there. I still think you’re beautiful.” 

“You haven’t seen me in a month,” she replies, but doesn’t feel like pursuing the argument. “Tell me about this French boy.”

/ / /

“I miss Russia,” she tells Joan a week before Mark’s scheduled to get home for good. “Of all the places I wish I could take a trip to right now? Well, anywhere in Eastern Europe would be amazing, really. The cities out there have the most beautiful architecture. But the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, especially back in the 1740s. God, I wish you could see it. It was so gorgeous. Huge ceilings, and these gardens that were just  _ beautiful.  _ And the fashion back then? At court?  _ That’s _ what I wish I could be wearing right now. Not this stupid—” she tugs wordlessly at the maternity shirt that is doing nothing to make her feel less like a blimp.

“I imagine it’s been frustrating being stuck in one place and time all these months,” Joan says calmly. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Sam rolls her eyes, because she is  _ sooo _ pregnant and that means she’s allowed to be a bit of a grouch. “Don’t use your therapist voice on me, Joan.”

Joan shifts beside her. “What voice would you like me to use?” she asks.

/ / /

What Sam would like Joan to do is kiss her.

The thought’s been in her mind  _ constantly _ for several weeks now. It’s especially hard to ignore when Joan takes her hand in a waiting room, or when she lets her stay the night because Sam’s bed still feels too big and too empty, or when she distractedly rubs her thumbs into the knot in Sam’s neck while giving her the latest updates on the launch of Joan’s atypical pregnancy research initiative. There’s a compulsion in Sam’s muscles to not only lean into the touch, but to turn and put her hands on Joan’s face and guide her until her lips press against whichever bit of Sam’s skin she can reach.

/ / /

This time, Mark’s plane comes in after dark. He and Joan and Sam grab take out on the way home, and then they pile onto Joan’s couch to eat while Mark talks them through his photoreel from the trip.

Sam falls asleep on his shoulder somewhere around midnight.

She’s not sure how much time passes before he nudges her back awake. “Looks like someone needs a ride home,” he says gently. “Want me to take you?”

She yawns and buries her face more firmly in his shoulder. “Let me sleep on the couch?” she says.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Joan says.

“I would let you sleep with me,” Mark says, “but I did just get home and I’m not in a big hurry to see the Regency Era again anytime soon.”

“She could sleep with me,” Joan says quietly enough that she’s clearly not talking to Sam. “Our rooms are far enough apart that you’d be safe.”

Mark seems to consider for a minute, then sighs. “That work for you, Sam?” 

She just nods. Her voice-box is absolutely asleep.

“Okay then.” The arm he has around her back grips her tighter, and he slips his other arm under her knees. He stands, scooping her up easily.

Joan opens the door to her room, and Mark sets Sam on top of the covers; they retreat to the hallway, but Sam can still hear their quiet conversation. 

“You’ve done this before, right?” Mark asks. “Had Sam stay over?” 

“Once or twice,” Joan says.

Apparently even Mark can tell it’s an egregious underestimation. There’s a beat of silence before he laughs and Joan makes a frustrated groan. “God, you never get less insufferable,” she says, but she sounds like she’s smiling.

“Hey, it’s my job as a little brother to tease you at all times,” he says. 

“It’s not even like that,” Joan replies.

“Uh huh.” He sounds unconvinced. “But it could be.”

“I suppose,” Joan admits. 

The floorboards creak, and Sam imagines Mark shifting his weight. His voice turns serious. “Do you want it to be?” 

Sam’s heart is in her throat, which is making it suddenly very difficult to hear. She thinks she must have missed Joan’s reply, but then Joan just says, “I’m sorry, Mark.” Her voice is indescribably small. 

“No, don’t be. I think...” he says, finally lowering his voice so much that Sam has to strain to hear. “I think she feels that way too. About you, I mean. If you were looking for another perspective.”

“And you’re okay with that?” she asks.

Mark takes a moment before replying. 

“I will be,” he finally says. “And, hey, it’s not like I can say I didn’t see it coming.”

/ / /

The next morning, Sam wakes up to Joan’s fingers brushing her cheek. 

“You had an eyelash,” Joan explains. She shows Sam where the lash is now stuck to Joan’s fingertip. It catches the early morning sunlight, and Sam follows it with her eyes as Joan turns and blows it away.

Joan herself is haloed by the pink light coming through the window above their heads. Her hair is sleep-messy, and there are black smudges where she hadn’t properly removed her eyeliner last night. The tattoo on the front of her shoulder is just peeking over the stretched-out collar of her shirt.

Sam could wake up to this sight every day for the rest of her life. 

“What did you wish for?” she asks, voice raspy.

Joan lays her arm on Sam’s waist and shifts closer.

“You,” she says simply. They’re a breath apart and she looks up at Sam through her own long eyelashes with a glance like a question, so Sam closes her eyes again in answer and then they’re kissing. 

It's nice for approximately three seconds until their mouths open; Sam unconsciously recoils at the taste. 

Joan pulls back, muffling laughter with her hand. “Maybe we should brush our teeth,” she says.

“Probably,” Sam agrees.

Neither of them gets up.

“That eyelash thing was really smooth,” Sam says. 

“I should’ve saved it for when we were more awake,” Joan laments. “This may surprise you, but I’m not always great at...impulse control.”

Sam can’t restrain her smile.

/ / / 

Pregnancy had come with a lot of warnings. The swollen ankles, sore back, poor sleep, weird cravings, morning sickness — Sam had known from the beginning that all of it was coming sooner or later. 

Joan had even found an old report from tier four that outlined the negative health effects of prolonged ability disuse: headaches, fatigue, restlessness, damaged concentration, and on and on. 

There’s been one sensation that nothing had prepared her for, however. For a few weeks, she’s felt like there’s a rope tied around her spine, right between her shoulder blades, and there’s someone or something on the other end pulling intermittently. The tug has been getting more frequent and more insistent every day; even when it’s not being pulled, now, she can feel the weight of the rope resting around her vertebrae.

She simply wasn’t meant to be in the present for this long. 

/ / / 

Mark gets into the habit of making them breakfast in bed on the weekends. 

“You really don’t have to do this,” Joan says the second time he wakes them up with a tray full of pancakes. 

Mark flops across the foot of the bed and takes a huge bite of toast. 

“I don’t exactly have anything better to do with my mornings,” he says, but he doesn’t sound bitter about his abundant free time like he used to before he’d first left on tour. “And I don’t hear Sam complaining.”

Sam can’t reply around the overly large bite she’d just stuffed in her mouth. She gives him a thumbs up instead. 

“Hey, remember when we used to cook breakfast for Mother’s Day?” Mark says. 

“We were both awful cooks and I don’t think we ever provided Mom with a single edible bite,” Joan responds.

“Yeah.” Mark sighs like it’s a fond memory. His hair is sticking up in every direction; Sam wants to smooth it down, but he’s too far away to reach and there might be syrup on her fingers. “But I’ve gotten way better at cooking — which is fitting considering that you guys are already better moms than she ever was.” 

“Our baby hasn’t even been born yet,” Sam points out.

“The bar is low,” Joan says. “For the record, Mark’s already a better father than ours is as well.”

Mark rolls onto his back and takes another bite of toast, but Sam can see he’s pleased at the comment. 

Sam frowns. She’s never gotten a straight answer for why Mark doesn’t have a relationship with his parents, but he was more than clear that he’d prefer not to even tell them about the baby. Sam had thought Joan might talk him around, but she’d just agreed. It’s all subtly disquieting. 

“Do you think it’s going to matter that he doesn’t have any grandparents?” Sam asks.

“No,” Joan says immediately.

“Between the three of us, Frank and Chloe, and the boys, he’ll have so much family he won’t even notice,” Mark adds. “And I promise you, his life will be better for not having my parents in it.”

/ / / 

Nathan is born three days before he’s due, and after only two hours of labor.

“ _ Only _ two hours,” Sam repeats, but doesn’t have the energy for the tone of incredulity. She’s exhausted to her bones, sticky with sweat on every inch of her skin, and so in love with the wriggling, screaming, mess of a perfect newborn tucked to her chest that she can’t even feel annoyed at Mark’s comment. 

Joan brushes the tears from Sam’s cheeks and presses a kiss to her forehead. 

“Ignore him,” she says.

“Hey!” Mark says, obviously going for indignant but missing by a mile because he can’t stop smiling. 

The rope around Sam’s spine is tugging more insistently than ever. She closes her eyes and focuses her breathing and clings to the present for all she’s worth. 

“It’s alright, Sam,” Joan says quietly. “You can go if you need to.” 

Sam shakes her head automatically — the only thing she needs is to never put Nathan down ever in her life — but she knows she can’t stay in the here and now forever. 

She swallows. She touches Nathan’s black hair, and runs her hand down his back, finger tips finding every dip in his spine. 

“Are you sure?” she asks. She can’t look away from him. 

“I told you when this started,” Joan says, “you don’t need to worry. I’ll take care of it.” 

“Right. Okay.” She has to take a deep breath again before she can shift Nathan into Mark’s waiting arms. 

Joan presses another kiss to her forehead, then presses one to her lips. 

“Go,” she says. “We’ll all be right here when you get back.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Did I build the entire TBS rarepair week just so I would have motivation to finally post this thing that has been kicking around my drafts for like two months? Yeah, pretty much.
> 
> Did I still manage to procrastinate posting this until the absolute last minute? Absolutely.
> 
> anyways, i'm detectivejoan and you can find me on [tumblr](http://detectivejoan.tumblr.com/)


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